Making Clouds with Wind Turbines?

[Alvia Gaskill]

http://geo-engineering.blogspot.com/2008/12/combat-global-warming-with-evaporative.html

 

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Combat Global Warming with Evaporative Cooling

To combat global warming, wind turbines along the coastline could be used for the dual purposes of generating electricity at times when there is wind and evaporating water at times when there is no wind. Just a small breeze over the water can give the top water molecules enough kinetic energy to overcome their mutual attraction, resulting in evaporation of water and associated cooling of both water and air.

The evaporation will give some cooling effect, but the real impact on global warming will come from albedo change. When there's much wind at night, offshore wind turbines could produce more energy than is needed on the grid. Such surplus power could be stored and - at times when there's little wind - used to pump up sea water and have this sprayed by the turbines as a fine mist over the water.

 

[No technology available to store wind-generated energy.  Use it or lose it.  AG]

 

This spray will contain tiny particles of sea-salt that get sucked up into the air, especially when there's little wind and sunshine causes rising currents of air. These little salt particles will attract further droplets of water from the surrounding air, forming clouds that are lighter in color from space than sea water (see albedo comparison below, from Wikipedia).

 

[It's not that easy to make clouds.  AG]



In early 2006, I wondered to what extent such increased cloud coverage could mitigate global warming. On the one hand, the extra clouds will reflect more sunlight back into space, but on the other hand water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas. While the albedo difference between clouds and sea water is obvious, some of the evaporated water could rise higher up into the atmosphere and increase humidity of cirrus clouds at high altitudes, thus trapping the heat underneath and heating up Earth even further through the greenhouse effect. Also, such evaporation could cause unwanted salty rain to fall over land.

Has anyone done any modeling on this?
Cheers! Sam Carana.

[Dan Whaley]

Alvia---

It doesnt qualify as a mature domain, bu the number of companies
looking to store power from wind is significant. General compression
is probably the leader.

http://news.cnet.com/Saving-wind-power-for-later/2100-11392_3-6170659.html

D

On Dec 18, 2:25 am, "Alvia Gaskill" <agask...@nc.rr.com> wrote:
> http://geo-engineering.blogspot.com/2008/12/combat-global-warming-wit...

>
> Wednesday, December 17, 2008
> Combat Global Warming with Evaporative Cooling
> To combat global warming, wind turbines along the coastline could be used for the dual purposes of generating electricity at times when there is wind and evaporating water at times when there is no wind. Just a small breeze over the water can give the top water molecules enough kinetic energy to overcome their mutual attraction, resulting in evaporation of water and associated cooling of both water and air.
>
> The evaporation will give some cooling effect, but the real impact on global warming will come from albedo change. When there's much wind at night, offshore wind turbines could produce more energy than is needed on the grid. Such surplus power could be stored and - at times when there's little wind - used to pump up sea water and have this sprayed by the turbines as a fine mist over the water.
>
> [No technology available to store wind-generated energy.  Use it or lose it.  AG]
>
> This spray will contain tiny particles of sea-salt that get sucked up into the air, especially when there's little wind and sunshine causes rising currents of air. These little salt particles will attract further droplets of water from the surrounding air, forming clouds that are lighter in color from space than sea water (see albedo comparison below, from Wikipedia).
>
> [It's not that easy to make clouds.  AG]
>

> In early 2006, I wondered to what extent such increased cloud coverage could mitigate global warming. On the one hand, the extra clouds will reflect more sunlight back into space, but on the other hand water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas. While the albedo difference between clouds and sea water is obvious, some of the evaporated water could rise higher up into the atmosphere and increase humidity of cirrus clouds at high altitudes, thus trapping the heat underneath and heating up Earth even further through the greenhouse effect. Also, such evaporation could cause unwanted salty rain to fall over land.
>
> Has anyone done any modeling on this?
> Cheers! Sam Carana.
>

>  455769-1.jpg
> 93KViewDownload

[f.m.maugis]

As far as it does not need wind but only heat, the vortex tower seems much
more effective than the wind turbine.

For more information see:
http://cdurable.info/Tour-solaire-a-vortex-maitriser-la-puissance-des-cyclon
es,547.html or attached resumé.

Cheers,

François MAUGIS - Paris (France)
http://assee.free.fr
============================================================================
===========================
-----Message d'origine-----
De : geoengi...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] De la part de Dan Whaley
Envoyé : jeudi 18 décembre 2008 17:24
À : geoengineering
Objet : [geo] Re: Making Clouds with Wind Turbines?

[Sam Carana]

Thanks for discussing my ideas and suggestions here. I acknowledge
that much work has been done by Stephen Salter and others in the area
of cloud seeding and spraying seawater into the air, and I therefore
hope to get some feedback from people like Stephen regarding the
viability of using wind turbines to spray seawater into the air.

Let me elaborate on what I mean with surplus energy. As the number of
wind turbines grows, there will be times when they produce more energy
than there is demand. Especially at night, when demand on the grid is
low, there can be a lot of wind. Unless this energy can somehow be
stored, it will go to waste.

As to storage, there are many ways to store energy. There are
flywheels, compressed air, molten salt, pumped-up water, hydrogen, car
batteries, etc. Pumped-up water seems an obviously promising method.
Surplus energy from wind turbines can first be used to pump up
seawater and keep this seawater stored, either within the body of the
wind turbine itself or within a separate water tower. At suitable
weather conditions, gravity can then allow this water to be sprayed in
front of the wind turbine, while gravity can also provide the energy
needed to ensure that the seawater is sprayed out in the form of a
fine mist, while the falling water could also power the rotor of the
wind turbine to give this mist enough lift to rise high enough into
the air to contribute to cloud formation.

As to car batteries, surplus electricity could be sold over the grid
to charge spare capacity of car batteries, which becomes increasingly
attractive with the rise of electric vehicles. As long as the vehicle
doesn't need the energy, it could be attractive for the vehicle owner
to sell the electricity back to the wind turbines when times are
suitable to spray seawater into the air and power the turbines to
allow this spray to go far and wide, and give it sufficient lift.

Another promising alternative is to use hydrogen. Surplus energy from
wind turbines could - by means of electrolysis - turn seawater into
hydrogen. The hydrogen could be stored as a gas in tanks next to the
wind turbine - little or no compression of the hydrogen is needed,
given that there is plenty of room for a large tank next to the wind
turbine. A fuel cell next to the tank could - at suitable times - turn
the hydrogen into electricity, powering the wind turbine, while
pumping up seawater and spraying this in front of the rotor.

The latter method could also ensure that there is a steady supply of
hydrogen, which could be used to power ships and boats - quite
frankly, I see no better way to power ships and boats that travel long
distances. It makes sense for offshore wind turbines to store surplus
energy in the form of hydrogen and allow ships and boats - at
commercial prices - to take such hydrogen on board. From there, it's a
small step to use spare hydrogen to spray seawater when weather
conditions are suitable.

I accept that there are other ways to spray seawater into the air,
such as vortex towers. However, it is in the end a matter of what is
the most economic way to do this. If surplus energy from wind turbines
otherwise goes to waste, while wind turbines remain idle periodically,
then there will be little cost involved in using this surplus energy
to make the wind turbines spray seawater into the air.

In conclusion, I do not see engineering problems in making this work,
but I suggest that each such method be explored further, to find out
what the most economic approach is.

For now, the question is whether there will be a net benefit in regard
to global warming. Clearly, this method will allow some latent energy
to be carried into the sky, and some of that energy will be radiated
into space. But the big question is: will the albedo change - as a
result of increased cloud coverage - outweigh the greenhouse effect of
water vapor.

Cheers!
Sam Carana

[Greg Rau]

If you are going to electrolyze seawater to make H2, you might also
consider doing this in a way that would be carbon-negative not just
carbon neutral - see the attached 2 articles.. However, doing this
would seem to require that chlorine emissions from seawater
electrolysis be eliminated by one of several possible ways.
Regards,
Greg